It’s Season for White Asparagus

In Alsace and southern Germany where Hans Rockenwagner of Santa Monica’s Rockenwagner grew up, the arrival of spring heralds not only the end of winter, but the start of the white asparagus season.

Here in California, Rockenwagner says, where green asparagus is so abundant and inexpensive, we take it for granted. But there, the rare and delicate white asparagus, dubbed the Queen of Vegetables, is an expensive delicacy.

During its brief season, just eight to 10 weeks, Rockenwagner has the huge white asparagus flown in from Europe three times a week for his annual unsere spargelkarte or white asparagus menu. More expensive than lobster per pound, the inch-thick stalks require great care in their preparation. The peeling of white asparagus is so important that the chefs won’t trust it to anyone else. It has to be done very carefully; leave a little strand of the membrane that surrounds the stem and it can give the delicate vegetable a bitter taste. The peeled stalks are then blanched in boiling water, with salt, a little bit of sugar and lemon juice.

“It’s the perfect example of a vegetable taking center stage,” the chef explains. “Everything else, even a piece of fish or meat, becomes a side dish, there only to enhance the asparagus. In Germany, restaurants will change their entire menus to make every dish around asparagus. And they go through hundreds of pounds a week. People really eat a lot of it because they know they won’t be able to get white asparagus again until next year.”

The most traditional way to eat it is as a main course (Rockenwagner serves an entire pound) with earthy new potatoes and either a vinaigrette or a mayonnaise. But his menu of half a dozen asparagus dishes also presents the vegetable in a “potato” risotto with red bell pepper, with tuna carpaccio and green asparagus with a ginger remoulade, and in a gratin blanketed with a gossamer fontina cheese sauce with prosciutto.

Next week, the chef plans adding another classic dish: white asparagus with morels and veal steak. And asparagus aficionados are on the alert for the arrival of what is considered the very best white asparagus, that from Schwetzineen near Stuttgart, in the next couple of weeks.

White asparagus season traditionally ends June 20.

* Rockenwagner, 2435 Main St., Santa Monica, (310) 399-6504. Open Monday-Friday for lunch, Saturday and Sunday for brunch, daily for dinner. Major credit cards accepted. Valet parking. Asparagus menu appetizers $10.50-$15.75; entrees $26.50.